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At a White House ceremony yesterday, President Obama conferred the National Medal of Technology and Innovation on Dr. Jan Vilcek, Professor of Microbiology at the NYU Langone Medical Centerand President of the Vilcek Foundation. The Vilcek Foundation is dedicated to honoring the contributions of immigrants in the arts and sciences. Twenty-two other distinguished scientists and innovators were also recognized for their extraordinary accomplishments in science and engineering.
Dr. Vilcek, an immigrant from the former Czechoslovakia, received this honor for his pioneering work on interferons and contributions to the development of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. His work was instrumental in the development of the anti-inflammatory drug Remicade®, now widely used for the treatment of Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis and many other chronic inflammatory disorders.